Abstract:

The world around us presents mathematicians with many interesting problems. One such problem is how drops form from droplets. In this talk I present a simple model of colliding (bumping) and coalescing (sticking not bouncing) drops in a cloud. I show how the model can be simplified to a point where it becomes mathematically manageable (albeit completely uninteresting to atmospheric scientists) and then address the following questions:

• Existence: Does a solution to the model exist? (Yes)
• Uniqueness: If so, is it unique? (No)
• Stability: Are solutions stable, or even asymptotically stable? (Maybe)